Prize awarded for ANU photogrammetry work

A paper by Mark Shortis and Greg Burgess describing the SG4
photogrammetry has won first place in the 2013 John I. Davidson
President's Award for Practical Papers.
This award winner is selected by the president of the American Society
of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS),
for the best practical paper published in the Society's journal,
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing,
during 2012. The award and prize money were presented at the
2013 ASPRS conference, held in March 2013 in Baltimore.

Photogrammetry was used throughout the development and construction
of the SG4 Big Dish. Firstly, the radius of curvature and slope error
of individual mirror panels was measured after in-house manufacture.
Photogrammetry was then used to measure and adjust the locations
of the jig supports on which the dish was assembled, with measurement
accuracy of better than +/- 0.3 mm across the 25 metre span. In order
to achieve the desired viewing angles, photos were taken from a crane
basket more than 30 metres above ground level.
Finally, the mirror surface of the completed dish was measured,
which determined the mirror panel pointing errors.

Associate Professor Mark Shortis of RMIT (co-creator of of VMS,
the software used to process the images) gave key input into
these three applications. The measurements were carried out by
Greg Burgess, with assistance from Ashley Kearton,
Paul Scott and John Garzoli.